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Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, 1859–1888.

A substantive and extensive archive of diaries and correspondence relating to farmer and civil servant Charles Marples, who was a pioneer settler in Minnesota and then served at Fort Snelling during the Civil War, following which he moved to Nebraska with his family. In Minnesota and Nebraska, Marples held a wide range of municipal positions. After his death in 1876, his diaries were continued by his hired hand Nick Norris, who also married his widow. Both the Marples and Norris journals include frequent allusions to contact with Native Americans.

Born in England, Charles Marples (1824–1876) served seven years in the British Army before immigrating to Philadelphia in 1838 and settling in Minnesota in the early 1850s. While visiting Ray County, Missouri, Marples met Hannah “Jane” Isley (1840–1931), whom he married in 1857. The couple settled in Faribault County, Minnesota, where Charles helped establish the town of Marples (present-day Minnesota Lake). Settled in 1856 and organized in 1858, the town was named for Marples by its commissioners. He served both as chairman of the board of town supervisors and as mayor. The first two journals offered here, spanning from 1859 to 1862, are from this period, and describe rural life in pre-Civil War Minnesota, during which Marples is engaged in farming and trading, and serves in a wide range of other municipal offices, such as Chairman of Road Supervisors, County Supervisor, and Town Clerk. He frequently holds school meetings at his house and at times records being in contact with railroad companies. Marples’s leisure activities include swimming, picnics, and attending dances at the house of one Marion.

In 1864, Charles was drafted into the 3rd Minnesota Infantry, but did not see action, serving instead as an administrator at Fort Snelling, which was used as a recruiting and training station for some 24,000 soldiers during the Civil War. His letters to his family from this period cover war news; Fort Snelling and its vicinity; recruitment matters, such as the topic of bounties being paid for volunteers, and so forth. His letters also deal with the operation of the farm back home, which had become entirely Jane’s responsibility in his absence.

In 1866, Charles, Jane, and their five children moved to Jane’s family home in Ray County, Missouri. As documented by the third journal, in May 1867 Charles, John Isley (his brother-in-law), and another companion traveled to Denver in search of promising farm land. After making arrangements for their new lives in the Denver area, the men returned to Missouri for their families, livestock, and other belongings. During the move to Colorado, however, reports of raids by Native Americans discouraged them from traveling further. Instead, they settled in Saline County, Nebraska, near Pleasant Hill, where Charles took up farming again. In Nebraska, Marples once again assumed—as journal three documents—various municipal roles and offices (County Clerk and Treasurer, judicial affairs, etc.). Eventually all of Jane’s family joined them in Nebraska. Three more children were born to Charles and Jane in Saline County. In 1874, impressed with the land in southern Gage County, Charles bought a homestead in the Blue Springs, Nebraska area and the family moved there in 1875. In the fourth journal Marples mows on Indian land, engages in farming, visits the Indian Agency to buy commodities, sows wheat on the school land, and more. In April of 1876, while Jane was pregnant with their ninth child, Charles died at the age of 52. His last child was born three months later. In November of that year, Jane married Marples’s hired hand, Nick Norris, and they remained on the family homestead and had two children together. Norris continues Marples’s fourth journal, recording his funeral, and keeps two additional journals included here. Marples and Norris both document considerable interaction with the Native Americans in Minnesota and Nebraska. Nick and Jane died in Blue Springs, Nick in 1925 and Jane in 1931.

PDF with complete description and representative passages available here.

Item #7668

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